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Students bid for Berlin trip to cover One Spark there

University of North Florida students who spent the spring semester covering Jacksonville’s One Spark festival hope to continue covering the crowdfunding festival for the rest of the year, but not in the First Coast.

Students of Ignite Media, UNF’s student-run media group that covered One Spark, launched a crowdfunding page Friday, asking people to pay their way to Berlin so they can cover One Spark’s first international festival this September.

Five UNF students are crowdfunding for $9,000 to cover airfare for themselves and their college adviser, Paula Horvath.

Ignite Media partnered with the Florida Times-Union during One Spark Jacksonville and its students provided content to the Times-Union. The organization will partner with the Times-Union for One Spark Berlin and will provide content from Germany.

During One Spark’s five-day festival in April, students ran an independent news bureau from downtown, covering business pitches, crowd turnout and transportation issues, said Horvath, a UNF journalism professor and Ignite Media adviser.

Students hope to go to Berlin to send back social media coverage of One Spark to a Jacksonville audience, as well as a few stories, she said. They will also cover the festival for the ExBerliner, an English language magazine in Berlin.

“Really what they would be investing in is they’d be contributing and investing in creating well-rounded journalists,” said Lindsey Kilbride, UNF multimedia journalism senior and member of Ignite Media.

Having the chance to report from another country would be an invaluable experience, Horvath said. Students have begun planning their festival coverage, which is heavily focused on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, she said.

“They felt that they grew so tremendously during the One Spark Jacksonville process that they really want to extend that to Berlin,” she said.

One Spark started in Jacksonville in 2013 as a festival to promote start-up projects by providing them with money, and festival attendees choose which projects get that funding.

The festival expanded to Berlin for its third event, which will take place in September.

Meredith Rutland: (904) 359-4161

TO DONATE

To donate to Ignite Media’s crowdfunding page, go to www.rockethub.com/projects/44541-unf-student-journalists-seek-to-continue-one-spark-coverage-in-berlin.